Lulu now selling DRM'ed ebooks

Submitted by holmesworcester on November 13, 2009 - 12:29pm

Slashdot reported over the weekend that Lulu, the print-on-demand service founded by Red Hat's Bob Young that has been an important resource for DRM-free and pro-sharing authors, is now selling DRM-infected ebooks.

Together, we have mostly defeated DRM on music. We now need to achieve the same victory with DRM and ebooks. We need to tell Lulu that DRM'ed ebooks are completely unacceptable. We will not let ebook publishers rob us of our right to share knowledge and ideas. With Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Sony continuing to push ebook DRM, we expect companies like Lulu to stand up for the public's freedom.

Lulu lets publishers of books and magazines sell physical and digital versions of their books, printed on demand, on lulu.com. The service has been popular with authors and publishers who are dissatisfied with (or excluded by) the conventional publishing industry -- the same industry that's pushing ebook DRM. Defective by Design is assembling a list of authors and publishers who will stop using Lulu's service (or who already have) due to their use of DRM. In the meantime, please contact Lulu and demand that they stop using DRM.

When I heard you had started selling DRM-infected ebooks I was stunned. Lulu serves a community of publishers who are dissatisfied with the conventional publishing industry -- the people pushing DRM -- and are instead looking for a better way.

Digital Restrictions Management is a threat to everyone's basic freedom to share knowledge and ideas. I refuse to use your service until you remove DRM from all of your offerings, and I will be telling friends and others through my social network to do the same.